COOPERATIVE CONTROVERSY CHALLENGES ELEMENTARY TEACHER CANDIDATES' CONCEPTIONS OF THE "NATURE OF SCIENCE"

One ideal instructional strategy for examining elementary teacher candidates' conceptions of the nature of science is cooperative controversy. This strategy forces students to actively engage in a debate of two opposing sides of an issue. Thirty-seven upperlevel elementary education majors at an urban University participated in the cooperative controversy lesson. Results show that before the cooperative controversy lesson, a majority 27(73%) of the students felt that the nature of science was fact based. After participating in the cooperative controversy exercise, a majority 22(60%) of the students felt that the nature of science was a combination of factual information and belief